Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/22

Leland notes by the editor interpolated in Leland's text, to which Bale added his own ‘Register of the Names of English Writers, whom the second part of his work “De Scriptoribus Britanniæ” shall comprehend.’ The ‘Newe Yeares Gifte’ was reprinted in Ralph Brooke's ‘Discoverie of Certaine Errours,’ 1594; in Weever's ‘Funerall Monuments,’ 1610; in 1722, Oxford, 8vo; in ‘Itinerary’ (ed. Hearne), v.; in Huddesford's ‘Life of Leland’; and, ed. W. A. Copinger, in 1895.

Leland's manuscript collections were on his death made over by Edward VI to the custody of Sir John Cheke, but when Cheke left England in Mary's reign, they seem to have been dispersed. Some were sold. No. 76 of Digby's MSS. (a copy of the four Gospels) in the Bodleian Library was bought by Dr. John Dee in London on 18 May 1556, ‘ex bibliotheca, Joh. Lelandi.’ The British Museum has a copy of Valla's translation of Homer's ‘Iliad’ (1522), with manuscript notes by Leland.

The five volumes of his ‘Collectanea,’ containing his miscellaneous notes on antiquities, catalogues of manuscripts in monastic libraries, and his account of English writers, passed into the hands of Humphrey Purefoy, whose son Thomas presented them to William Burton, the historian of Leicestershire, in 1612.

The original manuscripts of Leland's ‘Itinerary’ passed to William, lord Paget, and afterwards to Sir William Cecil, but they also ultimately became Burton's property. In 1632 Burton gave the ‘Collectanea,’ in five volumes, and seven of the eight volumes of the ‘Itinerary’ to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The eighth volume of the ‘Itinerary,’ which Burton had lent to a friend, and had been unable to recover, was subsequently presented to the Bodleian by Charles King (M.A. of Christ Church 1677). Several sixteenth-century transcripts of Leland's manuscript ‘Itinerary’ are extant. A valuable copy made by John Stow is in Tanner MS. 464, and four other transcripts, more or less perfect, are also in the Bodleian Library (, Annals, p. 75).

Other of Leland's autograph manuscripts seem to have at one time belonged to Leland's publisher, Wolfe, and to have passed from him to the library of Sir Robert Cotton, being now in the Cottonian collection at the British Museum (cf. ‘Collectanea’ in Jul. C. vi. 1, and Vesp. F. ix. 223, with copies in Vitel C. ix. 234, and ‘Index Librorum in Monast. Angliæ Repert.’ in Vitel. C. ix. 227). The Harleian collection contains interesting transcripts of the ‘Itinerary,’ with an index by Sir William Dugdale (Harl. MS. 1346, cf. 6266). Leland's verses composed for Anne Boleyn's coronation are in Brit. Mus. Bibl. Reg. (18 A. lxiv.)

Many antiquaries had access to Leland's manuscripts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bale used the ‘Commentarii de Scriptoribus’ (in the fourth volume of Leland's ‘Collectanea’), when preparing his biographies of English writers, 1548 and 1557. At times Bale merely transcribes Leland's notes, but in most cases he expands them, and Bale's antipapal rancour is all his own. Harrison in his ‘Description of England,’ and Holinshed and Stow in their ‘Chronicles,’ freely incorporated notes by Leland when they were in the possession of Wolfe. Camden in his ‘Britannia,’ Dugdale in his ‘Warwickshire’ and his ‘Baronage,’ and William Burton in his ‘Leicestershire’ owed much to Leland's researches. Camden was charged by Ralph Brooke [q. v.] in his ‘Discoverie of Certaine Errours’ with unfairly ‘feathering his nest’ with Leland's plumes.

On 18 Jan. 1580–1 Thomas Hatcher wrote urging Stow to publish Leland's account of English authors (Harl. MS. 374, No. 10), but nothing came of the suggestion. Bishop Tanner intended to publish many of Leland's manuscripts, but he was delayed by his labours on his ‘Notitia Monastica,’ and was disappointed to find himself anticipated in one part of his design by the appearance in 1709 of Leland's ‘Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis’ at Oxford, under the editorship of Anthony Hall [q. v.] This was the first of Leland's antiquarian collections to be published. Hearne justly complains that the edition is very faulty, owing to many omissions and to erroneous transcription. His own copy, collated with Leland's manuscripts as far as p. 133, is in the Bodleian Library (Letters from the Bodleian, i. 198). A copy in the British Museum also contains copious manuscript notes. Tanner, ten years later, was still collecting notes for another edition of the book (cf., Lit. Anecdotes, v. 356), and his design developed into his ‘Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica,’ 1748 (cf. Notes and Queries, vi. 83–4).

It is owing to Hearne's industry that the chief part of Leland's writings was first sent to the press. In 1710 the ‘Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary’ was published at Oxford in nine volumes. A revised edition, with additions, appeared in 1745, and a third in 1770. Miss Toulmin Smith re-edited the ‘Itinerary’ (12 pts. in 5 vols.), 1906–8. Leland's notes on West Somerset were edited by W. George in 1879; those on Hampshire in 1868, and those on Wiltshire (by Canon Jackson) 1875. Hearne's edition of the ‘Collectanea’ was published at Oxford in six volumes in 1715.